Earthenware brings out flavors like no other cooking implement. (Anne Cusack / Los Angeles Times)

I don’t think I’ve ever met a clay cooking pot I didn’t like … or want to own. And I have more than 100 clay pots of every size in my kitchen to prove it: Moroccan tagines, Provençal daubieres, Spanish cazuelas, Italian bean pots, Turkish guvecs and even ceramic colanders, including one I use to steam couscous. I love the way these pots tie me to traditions, deep-rooted ways of cooking, and add flavor and finesse to my food.

I bought my first clay pot at age 19, just weeks after starting cooking lessons with legendary teacher Dione Lucas. She sent me to a French restaurant supply store in Lower Manhattan where my eyes immediately fell upon an odd-looking, low, pot-bellied, earthenware vessel with a tiny covered opening. The sales clerk told me it was used to cook tripe. Back then I had no idea what tripe was, but the shape of the pot fascinated me, and so I bought it for its beauty.

Somehow it survived numerous moves, to Europe, Morocco and the East and West coasts, always beautiful and always producing soft and exceedingly rich beef stews.

Oddly, I’ve used it only once for tripe, until this past year, when San Francisco chef Loretta Keller, who collects clay tripieres, came to my house in Sonoma, Calif., to cook with me. The tripe cooked so slowly and evenly that when she uncovered the pot, it fell apart at the touch of a fork. The resulting dish was wonderful, rich, layered flavors and sensual melting textures, further proof, if I still needed it, that food — almost any food — always tastes better when cooked in clay.

When living in Morocco, as I was starting on my multiyear study of Moroccan cuisine, I first encountered the ubiquitous two-part cooking vessel called a tagine — low-rimmed concave plate-like bottom and high cone-shaped top. The vessel is ingenious for the way the top cools steam from the stew (or tagine) simmering below, condenses it, then sends it back down into the cooking food.

My favorite tagine, and the one I use most, was acquired secondhand from a Berber family on a field trip to the Rif Mountains. Even when I bought it, this pot bore the scent of Moroccan spices and the patina of long use. To my eyes it is also very beautiful in that the clay top piece, the cone, has been deeply grooved by its potter with crisscrossing diagonal slashes in the Berber style.

And like all tagines, it makes a fine serving dish too, conjuring up the special, almost mystical quality of Moroccan tagines — fresh produce and succulent meat served in a rich, unctuous sauce.

Bean pots made of micaceous clay have been a revelation. My best one, a true beauty, was a gift from chef/owner Katharine Kagel of Cafe Pasqual’s in Santa Fe, N.M. Made by master potter Felipe Ortega, it is incredibly light and thin, yet easily holds 4 quarts. “It will give a sweet, hearty and slightly salty flavor to whatever you cook in it,” Kagel told me, and she was right: It cooks beans like a dream.

In fact, all clay bean pots, whether tall or wide, will, with slow cooking, produce delicious aromatic bean dishes, keeping the beans moist and protecting them from burning.

I could go on: A huge, yellow, vase-shaped cassoule used to cook cassoulets over a wood fire. A set of gargoulettes from Tunisia, in which meat is sealed, then set in the embers of a fire and then must be broken open to access the cooked food. A small meqlah from Lebanon in which I make particularly wonderful fried eggs. And a green glazed daubiere, made by master potter Philippe Beltrando, which produces delicious Provençal daubes.

I asked Beltrando, a tall, lanky, gracious man with flowing hair and beautiful tender eyes, the same question I’ve asked nearly everyone I’ve encountered since I started working on this kind of cooking: “Why do you think food tastes better when cooked in clay?”

I found his answer moving and mystical:

“Maybe someday scientists will come up with an explanation,” he told me. “It most likely has to do with the even diffusion of heat, soft heat that creates great alchemy in the kitchen. Think of bubbles rising from within a stew, hatching slowly on the surface to the rhythm of a slowly ticking clock.

“But, personally,” he added, “I believe something I was told by my grandmother, an extraordinary cook. She insisted that the best daubes were cooked in her oldest casseroles, because, she insisted, pottery has a kind of ‘memory’ of the food it held, and only a clay pot can keep the ‘memory’ of the love the cook put into it when preparing the dish.”

– Paula Wolfert

GET FIRED UP FOR CLAY COOKING

For this dish, author Paula Wolfert recommends a glazed earthenware or Flameware tagine, or a 10- or 11-inch Spanish cazuela with a cover.
She also recommends using a heat diffuser for slow, steady cooking (especially if using an electric or ceramic stove top).
The flour tortillas are a substitute for Moroccan flatbread. Cubeb pepper can be ordered online.

Moroccan Lamb Tagine with Melting Tomatoes and Onions

Total time: 3 hours, 45 minutes
Servings: 6

21⁄2 pounds bone-in lamb shoulder arm chops, thick
3 tablespoons golden raisins
1⁄2 cup hot water, plus warm water for rehydrating raisins
3 large red onions, 1 grated, and 2 thinly sliced, divided
2 teaspoons Moroccan spice mixture (see below)
1⁄4 teaspoon ground cubeb berries or cayenne
1⁄8 teaspoon saffron threads
1 3-inch Ceylon cinnamon stick, lightly crushed (often sold as Mexican cinnamon)
Salt
1 tablespoon unsalted butter
3 tablespoons mild olive oil, divided
6 plum tomatoes, preferably Roma, peeled, quartered lengthwise and seeded
Freshly ground black pepper
2 tablespoons turbinado sugar mixed with 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
6 flour tortillas
1 tablespoon chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley

Trim any excess fat from the lamb. Cut the chops into 11⁄2-inch chunks with bones. Soak the raisins in warm water for 15 minutes to rehydrate.
Meanwhile, place the lamb, grated onion, Moroccan spice mixture, cubeb berries or cayenne, saffron, cinnamon stick, 1 teaspoon salt, butter and half the oil in the tagine. Place on a heat diffuser if possible, uncovered, over low heat until the aroma of the spices is released, about 10 minutes. Do not brown the meat. Add the 1⁄2 cup hot water and gently increase the heat to slowly bring to a boil.

Drain the raisins. Cover the meat mixture with the onion slices and raisins and spread the tomatoes, cut side down, on top. Cover the tagine, reduce the heat to low and cook until the lamb is tender, about 2 hours.

When the lamb is almost ready, set an oven rack on the middle shelf of the oven. Heat the oven to 350°.

Remove the top of the tagine and tilt the pot to pour all the liquid into a medium conventional skillet. Skim the fat off the top of the liquid; then boil it down to 3⁄4 cup. Season with salt and pepper to taste. Spread the reduced juices over the tomatoes in the tagine. Remove and discard the cinnamon stick. Scatter the sugar and ground cinnamon on top. Place in the oven and bake, uncovered, for 45 minutes. Switch the oven heat to broil, dribble over the remaining oil, and cook until crusty and lightly charred, about 5 minutes. Serve at once or reheat gently over medium heat.
Just before serving, warm the tortillas, tear them into large pieces, and spread the pieces of 2 tortillas over a large serving platter. Spoon about half the contents of the tagine on top. Repeat with another 2 tortillas and the remaining contents of the tagine. Top with the last of the tortilla pieces and a sprinkling of parsley. Serve immediately.

Moroccan Spice Mixture (La Kama)

1 tablespoon ground ginger
1 tablespoon ground turmeric
1 tablespoon finely ground black pepper
2 teaspoons ground Ceylon or Mexican cinnamon
2 teaspoons ground cubeb berries (optional)
1 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg

Combine all the ingredients and shake well to mix thoroughly. Store, tightly covered, for up to 6 months.

Per serving: 599 calories; 34 grams protein; 41 grams carbohydrate; 4 grams fiber; 33 grams fat; 12 grams saturated fat; 114 milligrams cholesterol; 13 grams sugar; 778 milligrams sodium

Recipe adapted from “Mediterranean Clay Pot Cooking” by Paula Wolfert.